Archives For Ford Dealers

While participating in a meeting during NADA 2015 in San Francisco, I challenged Brian Pasch’s assertion that car dealers should not invest too much time or energy on Pay-per-Click Search Engine Advertising strategy or tactics… Almost a year and a half later, I believe Brian has come to understand why I still work so diligently at educating dealers about Google Adwords as a strategic digital marketing tool.

Recently Brian published an article on LinkedIn which references Ford Motor Company’s latest initiative to compel their dealers to spend more of their advertising budget on PPC Search Advertising. This article is compelling because it showcases a major OEM doing whatever they can to drive their Dealer Network’s competitive positioning in Search Results Page rankings via the use of Google Adwords.

Although I agree that dealers need more and better educational resources for their digital marketing proficiency, I do not believe it is a 100% educational issue, nor will the problem be resolved by learning alone. Car Dealers have an almost inexplicable affinity for the off-line advertising media that has served them so well over the years… In the past. This will only be overcome when those of us in the automotive digital marketing world learn to communicate, present and close deals as well as the old school media sales professionals.

Education Is a Cause of Low Impression Share

Recently, Ford sent out a memo to their franchise dealers outlining their new co-op policy regarding funds associated with digital media investments. The new policy will require Ford Dealers to use 50% of the digital media funds for paid search, starting July 1st, until dealership impression share increases.

The reason for this change in policy, according to Ford, it the abysmally low AdWords impression share that Ford dealers have when consumers conduct a search in their local market for Ford related terms or general shopping terms.

The dealers must increase their paid search spend until they hit a target impression share, which would make the brand more competitive in search results.

While I understand the reason for this policy change, and how it will help to support the national advertising campaigns that Ford runs, it does not fix the underlying problem.

Why are Ford dealers not seeing the need to invest in search engine marketing?

According to Ford’s memo, their dealer network is being outgunned by competitors by nearly a 3:1 ratio in paid search. Other dealer networks are investing in paid search, protecting their brand related terms, resulting in a much higher impression share.

So what is really the root cause of this competitive disadvantage? An issue is the current state of franchise dealership education. It is not a problem unique to the Ford dealer network. While some Ford dealers may not understand that they must advertise online, why is the Ford network they so far behind their peers?

While policies that require spending in specific strategies (SEM) makes sense in the short term, to protect market share, the bigger problem at hand is the failure of dealership education and certification regarding online marketing.

Franchise dealers hate being told how they have to advertise their dealership.

So, I’ll raise my hand to offer assistance to the Ford dealer network regarding strategies to help Ford dealers understand the “why” behind digital advertising and online marketing. PCG has developed a comprehensive catalog of online workshops designed to educate dealers on automotive digital marketing and sales process.

Once Ford dealers understand the “why” behind this policy change, they will adjust their spending patterns naturally. Forcing franchise to spend their advertising dollars in certain areas, without establishing a clear financial benefit first, will create friction between Ford and their dealer network.

Right now, affirmative action is needed. I support that decision, however, what about social media advertising? Video pre-roll advertising? Will the beatings continue without education?

Do you agree? Share your thoughts below.

2016 Digital Marketing Strategies Conference

I invite all dealership leaders to join me at the 6th Annual Digital Marketing Strategies Conference (DMSC), May 22-24th in the Napa Valley. This conference is designed for dealership owners and managers who want to gain a competitive edge with their online marketing strategy. 18 tickets remain; act quickly.

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE VIA COST CONTROLS – Dealers United enables
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enrolling your dealership in Dealers United…

Google makes it clear that the +1 button does have an impact on your organic rankings, regardless of whether they come from a PPC ad or your organic listing. As long as the URL of your PPC ad matches the URL of the organic listing, +1’s will show on both results. The company also notes that while +1’s will affect your organic search ranking, they will not change Quality Score or ad ranking. However, the most important component of Quality Score is Click-Through Rate (CTR) and I suspect that the primary reason that Google is testing this functionality in PPC ads is that they believe (as I do) that when a user sees a +1 from a trusted source, they will be more likely to click on the ad—increasing CTR, Quality Score, and Google’s ad revenue.

Jim Ziegler and Ralph Paglia Host Dealer Battle Plan Workshop in Atlantic City on July 6-8th

ATLANTA, June 2 — Top automotive industry trainer Jim Ziegler presents a dynamic workshop to help auto retailers meet online marketing challenges. Automobile retail sales are a fiercely competitive and erratic market. Ziegler’s plan is to give dealers an Internet Sales and Marketing Strategy to outperform the competition. This powerful event will be held at Bally’s Atlantic City, just minutes from the Philadelphia and New York City areas.

Change is constant. Nothing is the way it was, and will never be that way again. After working with thousands of automobile dealers over the years, Jim Ziegler needed to be sure his clients kept up with the new realities of changing technologies and the emerging influence of social media. So he assembled an all-star faculty for this dynamic event. All four presenters are world-class online retail practitioners. Their expertise and hands-on experience has shown they know what works and what doesn’t work in the online sales arena.

Workshop Instructors Ralph Paglia, Joe Webb and Tim Jennings have all been top-rated speakers at premier industry events and have managed both large and small InternetDepartments. When interviewed, Jim Ziegler smiled and said, “I’ve assembled a killer team for this event, combat tested veterans with more than four decades of in-the-trenches experience.”

Now, Ziegler and friends are delivering the real deal, content-rich sessions, hands-on “real-world stuff”, not theory. These tactics and processes are battle-tested on the front lines in dealerships all across the country.

Jim continued, “Dealerships can’t afford to miss a single opportunity to do business.” Having a dominant and effective presence on Facebook, Twitter, and other portals is critical to dealership marketing strategy. Ziegler and Paglia are masters of Social medium relationship sales and marketing. Students will take back an in-depth understanding of how to leverage online relationships for sales and profits as well as…

-- The pathway to success; from email, to telephone, to the appointment
to delivery
-- How to Maximize Existing Profit Centers and Create New Ones
-- How to use self-produced videos to capture customer trust and create
credibility
-- Focus sites, micro sites, and 12 other secrets to drive high-volume
traffic
-- Internet stealth marketing techniques with 'Ninja' Search Engine
Optimization
-- Marketing and Advertising with ultimate Video Search Engine
Maximization
-- How to turn your dealership into an Internet Sales Powerhouse
-- Customer Relationship Management and CSI Engineering Projects for High
Average Profitability, Top-Rated CSI Scores, Customer Retention and
Referrals!
-- YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter: How to profitize
relationships with consumers through customer-friendly "Pull
Marketing"
About :

Ziegler SuperSystems is an automotive training and consulting organization based in the Atlanta, GA area. President Jim Ziegler is a member of the National Speakers Association and has been a keynote speaker at National and State Dealer conventions, and has trained over 75,000 Dealers, GSMs, Sales and F&I Managers. Course and Training information is at: http://zieglersupersystems.com/ Jim can be reached at: 800-726-0510

ATLANTA, June 2 /PRNewswire/ — Top automotive industry trainer Jim Ziegler and automotive digital marketing expert Ralph Paglia present a dynamic workshop to help auto retailers meet online marketing challenges. Automobile retail sales are a fiercely competitive and erratic market. Ziegler and Paglia’s plan is to give dealers an Internet Sales and Marketing Strategy to outperform the competition by gaining unfair competitive advantage on the web. This powerful event will be held at Bally’s Atlantic City, just minutes from the Philadelphia and New York City areas.

Change is constant. Nothing is the way it was, and will never be that way again. After working with thousands of automobile dealers over the years, Jim Ziegler needed to be sure his clients kept up with the new realities of changing technologies and the emerging influence of social media. So he assembled an all-star faculty for this dynamic event. All four presenters are world-class online retail practitioners. Their expertise and hands-on experience has shown they know what works and what doesn’t work in the online sales arena.

When interviewed, Jim Ziegler smiled and said, “I’ve assembled a killer team for this event, combat tested veterans with more than four decades of in-the-trenches experience.”

When asked about his success in selling over 4,000 cars via the web in calendar year 2006 while working as Internet Director at Courtesy Chevrolet in Phoenix, Ralph Paglia smiled and responded, “Our team in Phoenix was able to do that because we went to war on the web with several unfair competitive advantages… As other dealers caught on, copied what we were doing, we continued to launch barrage after barrage of web initiatives that kept us ahead in the market by seizing and controlling car buyer mindshare…”

The well known Automotive Digital Marketing guru, Ralph Paglia, went on to say that he will deliver; “…several strategic and tactical “How To’s” that will not be for the weak or timid dealer because they are the web equivalent of “going nuclear” on a dealer’s local competition.”

Ralph Paglia stated, “Dealers with a weak stomach for hyper-competitive tactics such as driving traffic from their competitor’s lots and showrooms using mobile web apps and text messaging may find some of my more aggressive tactics as being a little over the top… But, by learning my Web Ninja Sales tactics they will at least be able to recognize and know when other dealers are using these aggressive techniques to steal business from their dealership before it is too late to defend themselves!”

At Bally’s Resort in Atlantic City, NJ on July 6 through July 8, Jim Ziegler and Ralph Paglia will deliver the real deal, content-rich sessions, hands-on “real-world stuff”, not theory. Attendees will leave this 3 day workshop with the know-how to deploy the tactics and processes that are battle-tested and proven effective on the front lines in the most successful dealerships throughout North America.

Jim Ziegler advise all dealers to take action NOW; “Dealerships can’t afford to miss a single opportunity to do business… You MUST register and attend this Dealer Internet Battle Plan Workshop with your key managers or risk getting blown out of the market by your competition which is preparing THEIR Internet Battle Plan as you are reading these words!””

Having a dominant and effective presence on Facebook, Twitter, and other portals is critical to dealership marketing strategy. Ziegler and Paglia are masters of the Social Web and using this incredibly popular medium to generate relationship based sales and to achieve dealer marketing objectives. Dealer Internet Battle Plan Workshop participants will take back materials, hand-outs, CD’s, top secret user names and passwords along with an in-depth understanding of how to leverage online relationships for sales and profits.

Jim Ziegler and Ralph Paglia have each personally committed themselves to delivering workshop attendees a thorough understanding and ability to leverage the following…

How to implement “pathway to success”; email to telephone, phone to showroom, appointment to delivery

YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter: How to profitize social media through customer-friendly “Pull Marketing”

Using little known but powerful web apps to divert OEM traffic to dealership websites

Receive individual passwords and authorized access to restricted file servers with hundreds of proven effective email templates, phone scripts, reporting spreadsheets, How To PPT files, performance metrics from top dealers, Internet Dept. Workflow process maps, business plans and other content too valuable to make openly available on the Internet!*

Ziegler SuperSystems is an automotive training and consulting organization based in the Atlanta, GA area. President Jim Ziegleris a member of the National Speakers Association and has been a keynote speaker at National and State Dealer conventions, and has trained over 75,000 Dealers, GSMs, Sales and F&I Managers. Course and Training information is at:http://zieglersupersystems.com/ Jim can be reached at: 800-726-0510

“The Internet has indeed become an integral part of consumers’ local commercial activity,” said Steve Marshall, director of research, BIA/Kelsey, in a statement. “The data suggest we’re at an inflection point where the balance of power in local shopping is shifting to online.”

Over time, the researchers have noted an increase in the number of sources used for local shopping research, suggesting audience fragmentation that can be challenging for advertisers.

“These challenges may be outweighed by the targeting opportunities available with tools like coupon promotions and appointment scheduling, the latter being among the best lead sources possible, since you know where people are actually going,” said Peter Krasilovsky, vice president and program director, Marketplaces, BIA/Kelsey, in a statement.

According to the report, 58% of respondents said they had redeemed an online coupon when shopping locally in the past year, and 19% made a local appointment other than a restaurant reservation on the Web.

A ccording to a report, most users still haven’t answered the call by security experts to implement more robust passwords. In fact, in a list of the most easy to hack passwords, simply typing ‘123456’ took a truly forgettable top prize.

Security firm Imperva recently released its list of the passwords most likely to be hacked based on 32 million instances of successful hacking. Imperva named their report “Consumer Password Worst Practices,” and some of the entries near the top are truly simple and could lead to theft or identity fraud.

Top 10 Worst Passwords
The following is a list of the most predictable passwords, and should not be used under any circumstances (Source: pcworld.com):

How to Strengthen Your Passwords
Other key findings in the report: it seems that almost 1 in 3 users choose passwords comprised of six or fewer characters; more than half use passwords based on only alpha-numeric characters; and almost 50 per cent used variations on their name, popular slang terms, or simple strings of consecutive characters from the average QWERTY keyboard — such as ‘asdfg’.

Imperva has made several obvious recommendations, suggesting most users adopt passwords with at least eight characters and to mix those characters between upper and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols. Passwords should be simple enough that they won’t be too easily forgotten, but the idea is to make cracking the code virtually impossible for either an unknown or known hacker.

About this article: Dennis Faas is the CEO and Chief editor of Infopackets.com: a daily, digital publication dedicated to MS Windows, computing, technology trends and solutions to real life computing issues: all written in simple English. Subscription to Infopackets Windows Newsletter is free. Visit us today!www.infopackets.com

https://www.youtube.com/richiebello.com-fine-cigar-event-buffet Attention all auto dealers, general managers, and sales managers! You are invited to Richie Bello’s Cigar Dinner at the Beach Club Estate on May 9th, from 6-10pm! There will be an exclusive buffet, complimentary cigars by Village Cigar Headquarters, and a cash bar! This is a great opportunity fo […]

Bill Wittenmyer posted a videoWitt's Wise Words - Are You a "Me Guy" or a "We Guy"?Are you a “Me Guy” or a “We Guy”? In this week’s Witt’s Wise Words, ELEAD1ONE Partner Bill Wittenmyer explains the difference between the two and what the mo...

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Paul Rushing posted a blog postDominion has struck a deal to license the CRMSuite product from Richard Keith LatmanRead the press release from Business WireDominion Dealer Solutions announced today the launch of its new CRM, Dominion VisionTM. The most advanced automotive CRM in the market today, Dominion Vision combines the most intuitive CRM interface in t […]